Mealey's Asbestos
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March 17, 2025
Plaintiffs Say Recent Ruling Supports Summary Judgment On Government Immunity
NEW ORLEANS — Yet another jurist has joined the chorus of judges rejecting a shipyard’s government immunity defense to claims that it failed to warn workers about the dangers of asbestos at its facility, a woman’s family told a federal court in Louisiana on March 14 in a supplemental brief on the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.
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March 17, 2025
Asbestos Company Can’t Get Costs, Access To Expert In Voluntarily Dismissed Case
NEW YORK — A mesothelioma sufferer cannot be required to continue litigating a five-year-old asbestos case against the lone remaining defendant in his case so that the company can depose an expert and avoid litigation costs in other cases against it, a federal judge in New York said in adopting a magistrate judge’s ruling and granting the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the case with prejudice.
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March 12, 2025
Asbestos Case Disclaimer Defeats Removal, 9th Circuit Affirms
PHOENIX — A district court did not err in declining to exercise maritime jurisdiction and remanding a case where a man disclaimed any liability related to asbestos exposures associated with the U.S. Navy, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in an unpublished memorandum opinion.
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March 12, 2025
Judge: Shipyard Not Entitled To Government Contractor Immunity In Warning Case
NEW ORLEANS — Neither the fact that the government required the use of asbestos nor compliance with general and minimum safety requirements entitles a shipyard to government contractor immunity from claims that it failed to warn workers about the dangers of asbestos at the facility, a federal judge in Louisiana said in granting a plaintiff summary judgment on the contractor defense.
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March 12, 2025
9th Circuit: Navy Boilers Not Commercial Products, No Strict Liability
PASADENA, Calif. — Boilers supplied for use on U.S. Navy vessels were custom built to government specifications, and because they were not commercially available, a judge properly declined to instruct a jury on strict liability, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said March 11 in affirming a judge’s ruling in an asbestos case that ended in a defense verdict.
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March 11, 2025
Plaintiff/Defense Experts Testifying Since Jan. 1, 2002
The following is a listing of plaintiff and defense experts who testified in trials covered by Mealey's Litigation Report: Asbestos since Jan. 1, 2002.
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March 11, 2025
Montana Senate Considers Relocating Asbestos Claims To New Court
HELENA, Mont. — Legislation in the Montana Senate seeking creation of a three-judge government claims court that would have jurisdiction over constitutional and asbestos-related claims was passed on a second read after moving out of the Judiciary Committee.
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March 11, 2025
Vermont High Court Affirms Quash Of Insurer Subpoena In J&J Talc Coverage Suit
MONTPELIER, Vt. — An insurer trying to escape liability for a verdict against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in an asbestos-talc bodily injury mass tort litigation improperly served an out-of-state subpoena on a regulatory department for information filed by the company’s captive insurance company without first establishing that the information it sought was not available from other nonconfidential sources, the Vermont Supreme Court found, upholding a trial court's decision to quash the subpoena.
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March 11, 2025
Pizza Oven Parts Supplier Must Face Asbestos Suit, New York Court Says
NEW YORK — A party not named in an Illinois asbestos suit and not in privity with any of those defendants may still be sued in New York, a state appellate court said, concluding that the fact that the defendant may have been a supplier to a settled party and the possible presence of an indemnity agreement did not change the conclusion.
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March 10, 2025
California Court Won’t Review Ruling Limiting Genetic Testing In Asbestos Case
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California appellate court on March 7 denied a writ petition challenging a trial court’s ruling limiting genetic testing, which the petitioner claimed “undermines the search for truth” by improperly restricting discovery to only potentially admissible evidence and by eliminating the possibility that the testing could produce dispositive evidence of causation, according to a docket entry.
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March 10, 2025
Talc Law Firm’s Action Belongs With First-Filed Case, Federal Judge Says
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge in Mississippi said the advantages inherent in avoiding overlapping discovery and different rulings in different courts warranted transferring one law firm’s suit targeting a second law firm over asbestos-talc negotiations with Johnson & Johnson.
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March 10, 2025
Company Defends Claim As Parties Set Discovery Rules In Asbestos Expert Dispute
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary opposed reconsideration of a ruling allowing a single claim to proceed against three experts it accuses in a lawsuit of disparagement and false advertising based on their article linking mesothelioma to exposure to talc, while the parties asked a federal judge in Virginia to permit bifurcated discovery, with the first phase involving fact questions and the second involving damages, which the subsidiary also opposed.
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March 10, 2025
Reinsurance Dispute Closed After Parties Agree To Dismiss All Claims
OMAHA, Neb. — A federal judge in Nebraska dismissed with prejudice a suit involving a reinsurance contract and a settlement with the state of Montana over alleged asbestos exposures, following a joint stipulation between the parties to dismiss all claims.
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March 10, 2025
Asbestos Defendant Denied Robust Genetic Testing Seeks Appellate Review
OAKLAND, Calif. — A state trial court ruling limiting genetic testing “undermines the search for truth” by improperly restricting discovery to only potentially admissible evidence and by eliminating the possibility that the testing could produce dispositive evidence of causation, a company defending a California asbestos action tells an appellate court in a petition for writ of mandate.
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March 07, 2025
Washington Court Rejects German Automaker’s Jurisdiction Challenge In Meso Case
SEATTLE — The Washington Supreme Court turned away a German automaker’s petition for review in which it argued that a lower court ruling deeming it subject to Washington state law constituted a “significant, unlawful expansion of specific jurisdiction,” leaving in place a jury’s $5.75 million asbestos verdict.
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March 07, 2025
5th Circuit Stays Challenges To Asbestos Ban Rule
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted the Environmental Protection Agency’s request for a 120-day stay of cases challenging its ban on the use of chrysotile asbestos while the government determines what steps it must take to comply with an executive order requiring review of all rules issued in the past four years.
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March 06, 2025
Florida Court Hears Arguments Over Asbestos Expert’s Causation Opinion
MIAMI — A widow and a power company argued before a Florida appeals court about whether specific causation testimony from expert Murray Finkelstein sufficed and precluded a jury from returning a defense verdict in an asbestos case or whether the jury was free to conclude that other exposures were the more likely cause of her husband’s mesothelioma death.
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March 05, 2025
J&J Subsidiary, Experts Move For Bifurcated Discovery In Asbestos Study Suit
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary and three experts it accuses of disparagement and false advertising based on an article they published linking mesothelioma to exposure to talc asked a federal judge in Virginia to bifurcate discovery, with the first phase involving fact questions and the second involving damages.
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March 05, 2025
Fuel Advocacy Groups Urge Supreme Court To Review Federal Officer Removal Case
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ignored the “extraordinary coordination” required to fuel a war effort and imposed too narrow a focus in determining that the creation of an administration office severed the connection between the government and conduct required for federal officer removal, amici curiae told the U.S. Supreme Court.
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March 04, 2025
Jury Returns Verdict For American Honda In Asbestos Brakes Case
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A Los Angeles jury found that an automaker’s brake products failed to perform as an ordinary customer would expect and that it failed to adequately warn about the dangers but that the conduct was not a substantial factor in a man’s development of mesothelioma.
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March 04, 2025
Reinsurer Answers Liquidator Assignee’s Breach Of Contract Counterclaim
NEW YORK— A London-based reinsurer has filed an answer in a federal court in New York to a breach of contact counterclaim brought by the assignee of the liquidator of an insolvent insurer concerning decades-old asbestos claims; the counterclaim was brought by the assignee after the reinsurer successfully petitioned for a stay of arbitration.
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February 28, 2025
Trial Kicks Off In Florida Brake-Grinding Asbestos Case
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida jury heard opening statements in a case in which a woman claims bystander and household exposure to “exponentially higher” levels of asbestos than permitted by law while a defendant says it tested its brake grinding machine and that safety measures ensured compliance with regulations. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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February 28, 2025
Judge Adds Damages, Denies Post-Trial Relief After Asbestos Verdict
PITTSBURGH — The judge presiding over a Pittsburgh-area asbestos case awarded $128,406.16 in delay damages and molded a verdict to $3,928,406.16 while in a second order denied post-trial motions arguing that the statute of repose barred the case and that the court improperly handled expert testimony and bankruptcy trust claim documents.
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February 27, 2025
Family: Many Errors Infect Judge’s Erasing Of $107M Asbestos Award
LOS ANGELES — A judge completely ignored evidence supporting a $107 million asbestos verdict, including testimony about the presence of joint compound at a worksite, expert testimony establishing that the joint compound would contain asbestos during the times in question and testimony from other witnesses about corporate malice and the resulting suffering incurred as a result, the family of a mesothelioma victim tells a California appellate court.
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February 27, 2025
Massachusetts Justice Reduces Talc Pleurodesis Award, Otherwise Affirms Verdict
WOBURN, Mass. — A Massachusetts justice largely affirmed previous rulings admitting expert William Longo and evidence about a third-party’s testing of talc and said that nothing required upsetting the jury’s verdict finding a talc company liable for a man’s mesothelioma after a talc pleurodesis procedure but that unclear instructions and perhaps an intent to punish led to a “greatly disproportionate” $21.5 million award for future pain and suffering and reduced that portion of the verdict to $6 million.